1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the precision cleaning of processing and manufacturing equipment and, more particularly, to apparatus and methods for utilizing high frequency megasonic energy in combination with selective cleaning media to clean electronic device processing and manufacturing equipment, and other types of processing and manufacturing equipment etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
In electronic device manufacturing operations, megasonic cleaning is widely used to remove particle contamination from semiconductor wafers, magnetic media, etc. to mitigate against the detrimental effects of particle contamination on wafer yield and device reliability. However, there are persistent concerns regarding particulate and trace metal cross-contamination between semiconductor wafers, magnetic media and the parts, equipment, or tools, etc. that are used to process these semiconductor wafers, magnetic media.
Conventionally, the cleaning of the processing parts, equipment, and tools etc. used in electronic device manufacturing operations is accomplished using low-frequency (less than 75 KHz) ultrasonic precision cleaning methods. However, as the critical dimensions of semiconductor wafers etc. continue to decrease and the number of submicron particles (e.g. 0.1 μm-0.5 μm) deposited on the surfaces of processing parts, equipment, and tools etc. increase, low-frequency ultrasonic cleaning techniques are no longer capable of effectively removing submicron particles from processing parts, equipment, tools, etc, which can greatly affect wafer fabrication line yield and device yield, etc.
In view of the forgoing, there is a need for an approach for applying megasonic energy to effectively remove submicron particulate contamination from the surfaces of semiconductor processing equipment components, etc.